


Dextera Domini

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Loneliness, M/M, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean tries to enjoy his bed. Well, he <i>does</i> enjoy his bed, only he doesn't enjoy his entire bed because he sleeps to the left.</p>
<p>Takes place around 09.14 (I guess, kinda).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dextera Domini

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [Dean in 09.14](http://apocalypse-patisserie.tumblr.com/post/77889355849).
> 
> I do not own the rights to these characters, setting, show, etc. No harm is intended.

Dean's got some sort of phantom by his side.

He tries to enjoy his bed. Well, he _does_ enjoy his bed, only he doesn't enjoy his entire bed because he sleeps to the left.

Sleeps in his space. His space being dictated by the fact that the space beside him, to the right, belongs to another.

Some other entity, this person he isn't with.

He's worn in just the one side. The memory foam remembers him over here. And in the morning, the hotel folds in his sheets still stick under the mattress on the other side. The right side.

He rolls and tugs for no reason. He's only gonna remake the bed when he gets up for breakfast.

Dean doesn't leave things on the right side of the bed. He's been walking on graves, six feet taller than the restless planted people, since dad-knows-when. Since the first time he was old enough to be tricked into shoveling dirt like it was some game. ("Keep digging, Dean, you're digging to China. C'mon, gotta help your Daddy out. Can you dig faster than me, Dean? I don't think you can, little man!")

He's never respected their space in his life. But he imagines this is what it's like to think there's somebody else you have to move gingerly around, some spirit you've gotta respect. He doesn't toss his bag on the right side of the bed or leave books there. Doesn't lay the parts of his pistol out there when he's stripping and cleaning his weapons. Doesn't toss his mags or his laptop to the right side of the bed when he's almost there, stroking to climax. His feet don't spread out that far when he's reaching for it, either, not when he's sweating and pumping himself, not when he's done and passing out, rolling over. Not sleeping, not in his dreams.

He sets everything aside, elsewhere, if not in its proper place. He never wakes up on the other side of the bed.

It's like a solid weight exists in the air there and if he thinks about it too much or starts wondering why he doesn't disrespect it, it extends. Settles like a restraint over his center and leaves him stuck where he is. Alone. And lonely, if he's honest. (He rarely-- well.)

Sometimes, if he blinks awake before his alarm, it feels like he's back at Lisa's. He remembers what it's like to have her breathing deep and unspun next to him on the bed, all the warm miles of her skin. When awareness starts to creep in, first there's the difference underneath him, that not a tick of his elbow or a shift of his own body sinks or creaks through the mattress. Then there'll be the lack of sound, then of heat and life. And he's back in the bunker. Right. Yeah. (Of course.)

In reality, he's slept like this for years. Only not _specifically_ like this.

He slept on the inside of the room in every motel. It served a dual purpose, depending who called which bed. It kept him away from the drafty door or window or too-cold A/C, moved him toward the warm center of the room. It also kept him closest to Sam. He'd always sleep on the edge of the bed closest to Sam. Some resonance pinged off in his life from the very first time little Sammy snuffled awake and started crying for somebody, and Dean was the only one around. One length of himself closer to Sam in the night meant one less gut-wrenching sob or frightened cry Dean had to hear his baby brother make. It meant he could be closer, could do his job faster. Could be a better big brother.

True enough, exiting to the left takes him down the hall to Sam's space. That could be what this is about. Could be how it started. But it's not all that it means.

They come back from a hunt and Sam's shut up again, leaving Dean alone. Alone, alone. And he gets back to his room and some clutch of anticipation releases at it being empty, no phantom come to life. 

What he realizes, after the first few times, is that he's not waiting to get jumped or something. Nobody's gonna be waiting in the bunker to harm them, and if they were, they wouldn't hide out in _his_ room.

Actually? He thinks he's waiting for someone. Or waiting for the day when he comes home and someone's here, where they ought to be.

He tries to banish the thought as quick as he can.  
He sits on the right side of the bed to untie his laces and yank his shoes off.

Nothing shoves at his back. There's no one to protest when he hauls his bag up and dumps it out next to him, contents spilling everywhere.

But he doesn't sit there for long. He leaves for the kitchen, for a drink. Okay, a couple drinks. He's gonna get shitrocked and maybe sprawl out across the whole center of the bed. Take up as much room as he should, for once. Sleep with all his junk, his cell phone and the journal and a tie and a pair of shorts and a bottle of Pepcid rolling around next to a dead ball-point pen.

He cleans up when he gets back to his room. Strips down and tucks himself into the left side of the bed.

Instead, he thinks, _what about a strong, warm arm around me. What about a lady. What about sunshine in the morning. What about life._

And he sleeps.

«»

Dean hasn't lived his whole life mocking Sam's morning workout routine just so he can turn around and become a bouncy little Lance Armstrong lookin' motherfucker himself.

But the morning air, man.  
The sunrise.

He likes his room. He loves it. He loves his home. He loves _having_ a home. But there's something about a place with, you know.

Windows.

Round back of the bunker, where he found the giant steel doors that let him give the Impala a safe place to sleep, there's a retention wall that's high, but not so high he can't hop up on it and kick at the cement with his heels as he drinks coffee.

The air still mists with his breath; it's still cool outside.

It's nice, though, it being cold. He can absorb it for a while before he needs to throw on a jacket. The cold can help him banish the feeling of security he finds in drifting off wrapped in arms that don't exist. He doesn't share his bed with anyone. The way his life is shaping up, best it stays that way.

So, he doesn't pick up running in the morning or anything. But he takes his time to shake off every (lonely/not lonely) night. He comes outside to find relief and know that there's a world out here, even if he hasn't got windows to show it to himself. And the world is wide and worth whatever sacrifice a sad little shit like him can make.

He breathes in sunlight while he can.

«»

They don't expect to be anywhere near him, but Cas calls from Kentucky and, well, hell. They're in Kentucky.

The crime scene is a bust but Sam wants to talk to the first witness. Dean can't stop yawning and rather than being oh-so-unprofessional about the job, he tosses over the keys and walks the two blocks back to the motel himself.

Cas was only a couple hours away and there he waits when Dean strolls up, swinging his bag from the mini mart a little as he goes.

Cas pushes away from the door and they don't even bother to greet each other. Dean just unlocks it and Cas follows him in.

He probably picks the spot just to stay out of the way, just so he doesn't interrupt the Winchester flow around the room. It just strikes Dean a little bit when he steps back out of the bathroom, in his tee-and-jeans again, to see Cas sitting on the farthest spot away from the door. The right side of the bed that Dean had claimed earlier as his.

As he's heating up the frozen tv dinner he'd bought, he thinks it should maybe feel wrong, someone invading that space that's been pressing at his back for months now.

It doesn't feel wrong, though. And when he's got the tray all heated up, he goes to slump on the bed, in his spot, and kick his feet up next to Cas while he eats. Cas has got the remote and he's probably looking for a documentary with baby animals or star-consuming black holes or Tupac resurrection conspiracy theorists or something. Dude will watch literally _anything_ and come away from it completely enlightened.

He keeps his knees neatly in place and, when Dean settles in and adjusts against the headboard a little, he hangs one leg off the bed, trying to stay still there in as little space as possible.

Dean smirks at him. "You're gonna fall off. You don't have to do that, Cas."

Castiel settles back a little but still says, "I don't want to be in your way."

Dean opens his mouth to say that there's a whole other bed next to theirs but the words bring him up short before they leave his mouth.

But, he means.  
Well, yeah.  
It's just.

Well. Their bed.

Dean doesn't say anything. He looks back down at his pre-packaged dinner and pokes at it with his fork before deciding he's too tired and too hungry to find anything unappetizing.

When Cas says he has a car he can just hang out in for the night, Sam pulls one of his newly-established gestures that removes him from the situation as a brother or a family member: he turns away from the conversation and does _anything_ else. It makes Dean's jaw ache wanting to rip Sam's off.

Cas seems to sense the tension and looks between them. When his eyes sweep back to Dean, he looks just the slightest bit alarmed.

Dean starts to say, hell no, you can stay on the couch for the night, but Cas seems to change his mind first.

"Actually, you know. I could just break into one of the empty rooms and watch television for the night. That would be. A. Well, a good way to spend the time until you're both ready to go in the morning," he offers instead.

They both glance at Sam who's busy pretending he's not even in the room.

"Dean," Cas says, snapping Dean's attention back to him. "Could you, um. Help me determine which room is least likely to be occupied? I, uh..." He points, vaguely.

Dean grabs his jacket and just nods and leads the way out of the room. He lets Cas pull the door closed lightly behind them when he'd much rather slam it closed on Sam's stubborn ass.

They walk a ways down the complex.

"Dean," Cas says again, but this time he lightly hooks fingers around Dean's elbow, and Dean slows, stops.

Cas doesn't have to say anything. He projects worry at Dean just looking back the direction they came from and back at him again.

"Sam just wants us to get some distance, that's all," Dean explains. Sticks with the bare bones of it because what it really is, this hurt he caused and this rejection he deserves, it's closing up his throat. And he hasn't even cried over this (on the cold left-hand side of his bed) in his room yet, so he's not likely to wanna do it out here.

Cas's hand rises again, just slightly, before it drops. Dean couldn't adore him any more in that moment for not extending a single word of false comfort.

"The, uh. The rooms on that side of the parking lot. All the streetlamps are broken on that side of the lot, so probably nobody's over there. I didn't see that many names on the book when we checked in. C'mon," he motions.

Cas follows.

They don't have to pick the lock. Cas is all graced up and he can pull this simple trick on his own. They draw the curtains so he can turn on a light and watch the tv without betraying that the room is illegally occupied.

"You're all set, then, right?" Dean asks. "And we'll see you in the morning?"

Cas nods, but he still looks concerned. Disturbed, like he's getting hurt by the way things are between Dean and Sam, too. And he wasn't in a room with them together but a few minutes.

He rolls his lips a little and wets them before asking, "Is there anything I can do? About Sam and...?"

Dean waves him off because he doesn't even feel like the 'nah' will come croaking out of his mouth with the right amount of detachment.

Cas nods slowly and seems to expect Dean to go. He takes off his jacket and scoots onto the one bed in the room. He squints down at the remote reading for the functions he wants.

He's squeezed himself onto the right side of the bed again.

Cas wants to help. Cas wants them to be okay. He's concerned, he's always so aware of them. Always keen enough to catch on to when Dean and Sam are pissing each other off. It's getting to the point that the rifts between them are wounding Cas, too.

God, he _belongs_. As much as they've tried to treat him like a separate entity, he's one of their own.

Dean hates everything right now, but he hates what's waiting in his own motel room for him more. He doesn't have to text Sam not to wait up for him at least. Because Sam will carefully and decisively let him know at some later point that it's not his concern where Dean sleeps- or doesn't.

Dean shucks his jacket and kicks off his shoes.

Cas has started channel surfing but Dean yanks the remote out of his hand and clicks the tv off.

"Get rid of your shoes," Dean orders, and lifts the covers on his side. On the left side.  
And he crawls in and waits.

Cas does as he's told. And when he's standing there in his socked feet, he looks down at Dean and makes his own determination, that he should pull back the covers on his side, on the right side, and climb in likewise.

Dean practically has a fit trying to adjust his head on the pillow after he watches Cas settle in. He's used to having two. He could see if they keep a spare in the closet. Instead he just folds his pillow in half and pins it down under his ear. He stares at Cas and Cas stares back.

Dean decides this is alright. This is him and Cas and it's okay. It feels fine. The fucking pillow, though-- son of a bitch, it just--

Cas sits up and slides his own pillow over, giving it up for him.

"You need one, you don't have to do that. I'll fall asleep eventually."

"I don't need one, I _won't_ fall asleep eventually. Take it."

Dean stares for a moment more before he accepts the pillow and wedges both under his head, pressing into them until he thinks he's comfortable enough to close his eyes.

But he doesn't close his eyes.

At his request (well, sort of), Cas is lying down next to him. And he's flat on the bed. Dean can't even look down on him without scooting to the edge of his pile of pillows an-- and you know what?

"Sit up," Dean requests as he does the same.

Cas sits up. Dean scoots the pillows to the middle. He pulls Castiel's body in, against him, and they both rest close on the same pillow.

"Okay," Dean says. "Better."

He's suddenly fucking wild about this idea. About the way that Cas fits not just against him, but next to him. In the gaping spot on the right side of the bed.

But really, Cas doesn't fit, does he? Like, what the hell is he even thinking? Cas doesn't need to sleep. He's all powered up again. He--

Is wrapping his arms around Dean. He doesn't have human limbs that will go cold and numb from lack of blood flow if Dean sleeps wrapped up in them all night. He can share the middle of the bed with Cas. And when he's deep asleep, no doubt, he'll shift back to his side and free Cas up to go about watching his random tv shows. And if he'd been opposed, by now, he would have left the bed, left Dean here or said as much.

Instead, Dean feels each individual finger Cas places carefully, spanning his back. The muscle behind each limb locking Dean tight to him. This sweet, warm embrace.

He wakes up against Cas's collar, using just him and needing neither of the pillows. The sunrise finding the slits between the curtains and making the morning glow.

**Author's Note:**

> ( [x](http://apocalypse-patisserie.tumblr.com/post/78015181452/sopranish-replied-to-your-post-are-you-trying-to) )


End file.
